MEN’S LAX ECAC Title on the Line GU To Face UMass for NCAA Bid Tomorrow By Tom Kenny Hoya Staff Writer

Charles Nailen/The Hoya Senior midfielder Phil Vincenti, shown here battling Navy, will face ECAC foe UMass tomorrow.

In college basketball, the 13th best team in the nation at the end of the regular season usually ends up as a No. 3 or No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament and has a legitimate shot to reach the Final Four. In men’s lacrosse, the 13th best team in the nation often goes home.

Only 12 teams qualify for the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament. Half of those bids go to conference champions, leaving only six bids for at large teams.

One of those precious automatic bids will be on the line tomorrow at Harbin Field when the No. 3 Hoyas take on the No. 13 assachusetts Minutemen. The Hoyas enter the game at 9-0, while the inuteman come in at 9-2.

More importantly though, both teams are 3-0 and tied for first place in the ECAC. The winner can lock up the conference title and the conference’s automatic bid to next month’s NCAA Tournament. It would be the sixth straight NCAA Tournament appearance for Georgetown, while UMass would make its first trip since 1997.

“This is about as big as it gets,” Georgetown Head Coach Dave Urick said.

Recent history adds another element to the contest. The inutemen posted a 12-2 record in 2001 and were 5-1 in the ECAC. The 12 wins were the second most ever in school history. However, their 13-12 home loss to the Hoyas last year cost them the conference championship. They did not receive an at large bid.

“They were very upset about not being in the tournament,” Urick said. “That should be about as much incentive as they need.”

The Minutemen played one of their more solid games so far this season in an 18-10 victory over Harvard Wednesday. It was the 400th victory in the 49-year history of the lacrosse program. Three different players scored at least three goals, led by senior attack ac Morley, who scored four times. A pair of junior midfielders, Chris Fiore and Kevin Leveille, scored three goals each.

“Their team speed is excellent,” Urick said.

On the year, Morley is tied with senior attack Dan Paccione for the team lead in points with 35. Fiore and Leveille have posted 32 and 28 points on the season respectively. Paccione has also been strong on the face-off this year, winning nearly 58 percent of his draws.

These four should receive the attention of Georgetown’s top two defenders, junior long stick midfielder Kyle Sweeney and junior defenseman Brant Gresham. These two have been charged with stopping the opposition’s top offensive weapons all season, and tomorrow will likely be no exception.

In goal, freshman Bill Schell and senior Rob Schneider have split time this year. Schneider started the first five games of the season before being replaced by Schell, who has started each of the last six games. Schell has posted a .573 save percentage and has allowed an average of 8.43 goals a game.

However, the most important player on the field tomorrow for UMass may be senior defenseman Matt McFarland. The All-American leads the team in ground balls with 68. He narrowly missed being selection to the United States National Team according to Urick, who was on the selection committee.

McFarland will probably receive the unenviable task of shadowing Georgetown senior midfielder/attack Steve Dusseau, the nation’s second leading scorer. A less talented Hobart team nearly upset the Hoyas Saturday, largely because they were able to hold Dusseau to only one goal.

While there are six at-large bids available to the NCAA Tournament, the Minutemen will have a tough time grabbing one if they cannot clinch the ECAC automatic bid tomorrow. Despite their No. 13 ranking, there are seven teams ranked ahead of the Minutemen who are either independents, such as No. 4 Syracuse and No. 2 Johns Hopkins, or play in conferences that do not receive automatic bids, such as No. 6 Maryland and No. 7 North Carolina. Also, there are currently three Ivy League teams, No. 5 Cornell, No. 8 Princeton and No. 11 Yale, who are ranked ahead of UMass. Two of these three teams will also be competing for one of the six at-large berths.

While the Hoyas probably sit in better position to receive a bid should they fall Saturday, they still have to play at No. 10 Loyola and at No. 4 Syracuse. Georgetown has never won in the Carrier Dome. They would greatly benefit from having a bid already locked up before entering this very difficult final stretch of their regular season.

“If the players don’t understand this is an important game, they will,” Urick said. “Our older guys have done a great job of relaying those sentiments to the younger guys all season.”